A simple place for which I fill the space with my rants and raves about whatever I want. You don't like it, don't let the knob hit ya in the ass on the way out the door.

Friday, May 16

Learning New Things

I was about halfway through my route last night, when the phones rings. It's the Wife calling. That's never good news. She only calls me while I am working if there is something dire happening/happened, like, "the water line to the swamp cooler evidently has a leak and the hallway ceiling collapsed after being saturated with water" kind of bad (true story, though I wasn't at work that time, I was out with my buddies).

Needless to say, the gut started clenching with nervousness, or maybe that was fear, of what was going to be the meaning of this call. Turns out it was about her van. As her story goes, as she was leaving work, and got to her van, she noticed the driver side window down. No broken glass laying around the ground, or in the van, so , remembering she had driven to work with down, she assumed she had just forgotten to put it up once she got to work. No big deal. She tried to put up the window (power windows) but nothing. The motor "whirs" she tells me, for a few seconds and then stops, but the window doesn't go up. The window is, of course, all the way down.

Basically I tell her that there is nothing I can do until I get home. In the meantime, I had to finish my drive (about two hours) fretting about how much this could cost taking it the shop, when would they be available to look at it, price of part and labor, how is she going to get to work if the van is in the shop, etc, etc. I am working myself to an ulcer over it. By the time I was headed home, I had just said "Screw it." I was going to pop the door panel off and push the window up, and hopefully would be able to figure out how to replace the motor, or whatever was wrong, on my own, and hope that the parts weren't terribly expensive.

I got home, found a couple articles about how to remove the door panel for that make/model of vehicle, and even a Youtube video for how to replace the window motor and regulators. In said video, it gave the description of the difference between what was wrong, the regulators or the motor, and it matched what was happening to our vehicle, for it to be the regulators. Of course, this means additional work at the removal/installation.

Either way, I was able to pop the door panel, push the window up, and tape it in place. I jumped on the computer and checked the local auto parts place for pricing/availability. Pricing wasn't bad, only about $90 for what I needed, which in the article I read, had said could go for $300+ if done at a garage due to labor/parts mark up. As far as availability, I will have to call today. With this company nation-wide, for some reason I couldn't find if the closest store had the part n hand or not. I hope they do.

So, that's what is going on tomorrow morning if I can get the part, or have it sent to that store by morning.
Joy.

Edit: Nice! Just called the parts store, they do not have it in stock, but can have it there in 30 minutes. I have one being sent over, and on hold for tomorrow morning. Now, I just need to get the torx wrench with it, and then waste hours doing the job. More Joy.